


Despair

by Jemisard



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Demands of the Qun, M/M, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-24
Updated: 2015-04-24
Packaged: 2018-03-25 12:50:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3811114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jemisard/pseuds/Jemisard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the Dragon Age Kink Meme:<br/>http://dragonage-kink.livejournal.com/13696.html?thread=53265792#t53265792</p>
<p>Cole has discovered love in the form of Charger, Krem. And now he's discovered grief in the form of the choice made to save the alliance with the Qunari at any cost.</p>
<p>And Solas, Solas can only watch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Despair

Solas was never going to forgive them.

Cole had asked Solas to come to the courtyard when they saw the Inquisitor coming back. He was so excited to introduce Solas to this young man that had enraptured him that Solas wondered for a brief, whimsical moment if Cole could project emotions as well as read them, because Solas found himself smiling at the happy grin on his young spirit's face.

He'd stood back a bit, to not crowd when the travellers arrived back at Skyhold, but Cole had waited near the gates, bouncing on his feet and twisting his fingers together until the group appeared on the long track.

The notably smaller group.

Solas hadn't been fast enough to grab Cole, wouldn't have been fast enough to stop him regardless because even with his newfound humanity he still teleported under high emotions and he was down with the group before Solas had made it to the gate.

He could only watch as Trevelyan closed her eyes and shook her head, Cole looking to Iron Bull, who met the spirit's words impassively.

Solas didn't need to hear to know. Not one of the Chargers had returned, but the pompous young elf, Gatt, had. He looked content and smug, even in the face of what had to be Cole's growing distress.

Cole screamed and his hand thumped into Iron Bull. Bull let him, for a couple of punches, then tried to wrap his arms around the distraught spirit.

The Fade shifted and cold hands grabbed onto him. "No! Make them take it back! They were worth more than the alliance! The alliance isn't even a thing, it's not real, it doesn't have emotions and dreams and they did, Krem did!"

"I can't make them take it back, Cole. Nothing can." He slowly moved to wrap an arm around him, giving him a chance to pull away, but Cole bowed his head, shaking in Solas' grip. "They sacrificed the Chargers to preserve the alliance, then."

Cole's voice cracked as he wailed, throwing himself into Solas and sobbing wetly into his shoulder. Solas held onto him, looking down the path to Trevelyan and Iron Bull.

He had thought... but no. Apparently, the slavery of the Qun would always mean more than lives and people. And political power had always meant more to Trevelyan than anything else.

"I'm sorry, Cole." He rested his cheek to the back of the young man's head. "But nothing can bring back the dead."

"Krem was worth more!" Cole shook with the force of his shouting, but Solas just kept holding him gently. "Krem was worth more than an alliance. He was their friend. I _loved_ him."

It was what Solas had always feared. In the misguided attempt to 'help' Cole become 'more', Trevelyan and Varric had instead led him to this moment. Able to love, able to lose.

Able to grieve himself into Despair.

Solas could do nothing more than hold Cole until he cried himself hoarse and hope against hope that he could keep Cole from falling into himself and the worst of what lost love could be.


End file.
